CELEBRATING ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
I’m going to ask you three questions, and I need you to answer honestly.
First, did you know that Black children are punished more often and more severely than their white classmates? Second, that Black borrowers are much less likely to be granted a loan than their white counterparts with similar credit scores? And third, that employers prefer applicants with “white”-sounding names over those with “Black”-sounding ones?
Reflective fragments, excerpts, bits from my journals, both paper and electronic since meeting my birth family.
“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
― Alice Walker
For eighteen years of my life my mother’s arms were the warmest home I ever knew. A home for when I felt scared or lonely or sad. What an actual home lacked in structural support, my mother made up for in love and kindness.
To my fellow Central American unicorns,
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for” -John A. Shedd
Dad,
Oddly enough, my most pivotal memories of us are simple conversations that meant nothing at the time, but mean everything today.
I’m not here to talk about all of the wonderful aspects of being biracial. That’s for another time. I’m not here to explain to you the entire world of a mixed kid in one essay. That’s impossible.
